


And Never Touch The Ground

by Azzandra



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Air Pirates!, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Dirigibles, F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually, it starts sort of slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-13 04:56:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Karkat and Terezi are taking a dangerous prisoner to face Alternian justice but get waylaid by air pirates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm flying by the seat of my pants with this one. We'll just have to see where it ends up. Gosh, I probably really need a beta. Anybody up for that?

It was a miserable day when they finally departed from the airdocks in Lolar, damp and overcast, but mostly windless and as fine weather as they were likely to get this late in the wet season. Karkat was grateful, at least, that it was not as insufferably sunny as when he and Terezi had arrived to this godforsaken Skaian province.

 

At the very least, they'd be returning to the Empire in more comfort than when they'd arrived. Being crammed into the hold of a merchant airship didn't compare to having a cabin on the Baroness of Locah's own personal dirigible. Everything was polished wood and shiny brass, every surface cushioned and padded and primped for the passengers' utmost comfort.

 

Well. Every surface but the brig, much to Terezi's satisfaction. Only shackles and straw for the captive down below.

 

Processing the prisoner had taken more time than he'd expected, even when dealing with human bureaucracy. Apparently, the Marquise had caused quite a stir along the coast of Skaia. Realizing that Cetus, her lumbering behemoth of an airship, was too slow to catch the smaller but quicker airships of human design, she had turned her eye to the seaships below, and at least a dozen had fallen victim to the Marquise's predations before she was arrested. Soon after, the Baroness sent Captain English to capture her ship and crew before they elected a new captain and started trouble all over again.

 

Hearing of the Marquise's capture, the Alternian Empire sent a neophyte legislacerator and her aide to seize her and bring her back home to answer for her crimes. Terezi had taken to this task with great enthusiasm. It was the farthest Redglare had ever sent her on assignment.

 

Karkat... hadn't been as enthused by it.

 

Before departing, Judicator Redglare called him to her office. It was rare that Terezi's ancestor took any particular notice of him, and so he had been filled with apprehension. Her desk was large and daunting up on its platform, and the hard chair in front of it looked a bit too much like the one in which the accused were seated during trials. Karkat knew enough about Redglare to realize that was perfectly intentional. Redglare believed everybody was guilty of something eventually, and life was just time that passed until the charges could be made.

 

“You'll need to be even more paranoid than usual when dealing with that one, Adjutant,” she said while thumbing through a stack of papers. “The world was safer before this new Marquise sprouted up.”

 

“Then why send a neophyte?” he'd blurted out.

 

Redglare turned towards him and looked at him over her red spectacles. An amused smile pulled at the curl of her lip.

 

“Retrieving prisoners from foreign nations is well within the attributions of a neophyte legislacerator,” she replied, perfectly right as always.

 

“But why Terezi? If the Marquise is that dangerous, send someone else,” he insisted.

 

Redglare had turned stern that moment; her expression hadn't changed, and she was still leafing through papers, but Karkat could tell by her posture that he'd stepped in it.

 

“Adjutant, I'm sending Terezi _because_ the Marquise is so dangerous. It's her job to do as I say, and it's your job to do as we both say. That clear, threshecutioner?”

 

Karkat had nodded vigorously.

 

“When I went after Mindfang,” she continued, “I had a dragon. Terezi will have only you.”

 

And after that remark, he was dismissed.

 

But he spent this entire mission tense, waiting for something bad to happen. The fact that nothing particularly bad had happened yet only served to fuel his anxiety.

 

Which was why the minute Hemera left her berth, Karkat made his way below deck, to where the prisoner was being held.

 

At the end of a dark, narrow corridor was the Marquise's cell. As Karkat approached, the two guards posted there glared down at him. They were dressed in the light blue uniform of airmen, but they were a large and lumbering pair, especially for humans, and obviously chosen for this task only because they displayed that mulish tendency to reject compromise that some humans called integrity.

 

The Marquise would not shy from bribing, intimidating or sweet-talking her way out of trouble, but Captain English had given his assurances that these two men would be unswayed by anything the pirate would have to say.

 

Karkat peered beyond the solid metal bars of the cell.

 

For all that she was shackled to the wall and the side of her face bruised an ugly blue-black, she still managed to muster every drop of haughtiness her cerulean blood permitted. She met his eyes and smiled thinly, despite her split lip.

 

An overenthusiastic guard had smacked her in the head with a truncheon during her arrest, which suited Karkat just fine. The concussion she'd received in the process had rendered her psychic powers harmless. He could still feel the cold, icy fingers of her mental tendrils skittering across his thinkpan, but she never quite managed to grab hold. And even if she did, the two brutes guarding her would not hesitate to put a truncheon to _his_ head if he showed any sign of being manipulated.

 

“What's this?” she purred in Alternian, her smile sharpening. “The legislacerator's pet has come to gloat?”

 

Karkat's jaw tightened with a clack. He wasn't supposed to talk to her or acknowledge anything she said, otherwise he'd give her an earful.

 

“Quiet,” one of the airmen said, not even looking at her.

 

“Poor little mutant wriggler, you're just itching to show one of us mean bluebloods what for, huh?” she continued undaunted. “I bet it's the only joy a freak like you gets out of life, except when that legislacerator bitch you serve bends you over a table--”

 

“Quiet,” the airman hissed again, visibly annoyed this time.

 

“Gloat while you can, because your luck's about to change,” she whispered.

 

The bars rattled as the airman hit them with his truncheon.

 

“Stuff it, Serket,” he yelled, and the Marquise turned cerulean at having her wriggler name thrown in her face.

 

Likely the human didn't even understand the insult, but Karkat grinned anyway. The pirate styled herself as Marquise Telsonna Mindfang. The humans didn't understand the significance trolls gave to titles, however. They tended to keep their wriggler names throughout their lives and tack their titles right in front, so their file on the Marquise referred to her as Vriska Serket and wrote her adult title under aliases. Usually Karkat would have been annoyed by such a horrendous lack of interspecies understanding, but he let it slide this time, and went back to the deck.

 

*

 

Hemera was an elegant ship. It was a mid-weight dirigible, a recent model praised for its dependability rather than its speed, but it still made good time. The entire voyage to the Alternian Empire wouldn't take more than a week, even if they had to stop along the way at Hemera's original destination in Lowas.

 

The weather never improved much, but Terezi liked standing on deck, undaunted by the perpetual drizzle, by the wind or the cold, and stare out into the gray skies. Karkat joined her whenever he could stand it, but he found it dreadfully boring. He also found staring at the walls of their cabin dreadfully boring, but at least inside he was a lot more comfortable. His threshecutioner jacket—dark green and seamed with gray, with his symbol on the breast—was made of leather and managed to keep him dry, but his pants did not have such advantages, and his boots didn't keep his feet warm when they got wet.

 

He didn't understand Terezi's masochistic joy at subjecting herself to the vagaries of weather and altitude, and he told her so. At length.

 

She cackled. “Karkat, if I didn't have masochistic tendencies, I don't think I'd enjoy listening to your rants as much as I do! I have no interest in weather. I just enjoy the feeling of flying.”

 

“You'd still be flying inside your cabin over a mug of the humans' hot tea,” he grumbled.

 

“Karkat, shoosh.”

 

“But--”

 

“Shh.” She tapped her swordcane on the ground, and Karkat fell silent.

 

“Fine,” he muttered after a while. “I'll be inside with the humans, who despite the overwhelming evidence that they have sacks of rusty nails instead of spongematter are still acting more sensibly than you right now. Just so you know.”

 

She grinned at him and winked, but turned back to staring at the clouds. Karkat made his way inside.

 

Luckily, Terezi didn't spend all her time on the deck. She came in for the captain's lavish dinners, to which both she and Karkat were invited because they were guests on the airship. Captain English was a dutiful host, if a little prone to becoming verbose when he got in his cups.

 

The first night, he managed to keep them at dinner for five hours straight, just recounting the tale of the Marquise's capture. Karkat was sure he could have reported the entire thing in five minutes.

 

She was caught by a pair of off-duty guards. They had been playing cards in a seedy tavern in Locah, the guards thought she'd cheated, a brawl ensued, and the Marquise was thrown into the city jail for causing a public nuisance. It was only by happenstance that someone glanced at the right report and realized who she was. The Marquise's legendary luck failed her miserably that day.

 

But Karkat found himself in the position of having to tolerate Captain English's prattle. Partly because Captain English provided them with food, and partly because Terezi seemed to enjoy the meandering stories the human insisted on inflicting on her.

 

The only other guest at the table, First Mate Roxy Lalonde, occasionally exchanged sympathetic glances with Karkat, but mostly she drank glass after glass of wine. Karkat thanked all the gods he could think of and all the horroterrors he dared for the fact that, unlike Miss Lalonde, he would only be subject to Captain English's stories for a week.

 

Not that the man was bad. He was a consummate officer. His white uniform was impeccable. His booming voice was well-suited for both giving orders and cussing out airmen, and between him and Miss Lalonde, Hemera ran perfectly.

 

After dinner, Captain English and Miss Lalonde retired for the night. Karkat and Terezi only retreated to their joint cabin. Their biological cycles wouldn't let them sleep at night and made them sluggish during the day, but Karkat usually only slept in short snatches of an hour or two, and Terezi had compromised and only slept in the hours of the morning.

 

She didn't go up to the deck at night. While the day was overcast and tolerable by troll standards, at night the deck would be lit by impossibly bright aether lamps, casting their blinding white light from one end of Hemera to the other. The light was so strong that it could be seen from the ground, and from what Karkat understood, that was the point. Airships that did not turn on their lights at night were assumed to be up to mischief.

 

Light poured in through the cabin's porthole. They did not bother with lamps.

 

Karkat attempted to continue reading the novel he'd started before embarking on this journey, but he couldn't concentrate.

 

Terezi was sitting in the only chair in the cabin, sullenly sharpening her sword. The whining sound of the whetstone against metal always made Karkat's teeth ache.

 

He threw the book to the side.

 

“What?” he asked.

 

“What what?” Terezi replied, sounding almost bored.

 

“Don't you start with me. You've been pissy since dinner. Are you going to tell me what's got your bulge harness in a twist, or am I going to have to guess?”

 

Terezi's mouth twisted. “Have you seen the prisoner?” she asked.

 

“Once every hour.”

 

“And don't you find some of the things she says alarming?”

 

“I find _all_ of the things she says alarming,” Karkat snorted.

 

“English doesn't think so.”

 

Karkat's eyebrows rose and his opinion of Captain English plummeted.

 

“He seems to think that a few shackles and two humorless guards are more than ample precaution,” Terezi sniffed, “and that all her talk about escape is typical pirate bluster. When I raised the issue with him, he practically petted me on the head and told me not to strain myself thinking.”

 

Karkat could feel the slow boil of his building rage.

 

“When was this?” he growled.

 

“At dinner,” Terezi replied. “I believe it was while Miss Lalonde was showing you her little locket with the picture of her favorite meowbeast inside.”

 

Karkat paused. Yes, he remembered that. He remembered it mostly because he'd pointed out that the artist had drawn her meowbeast with an extra pair of eyes and she reassured him the picture was true to life. He'd been trying to sort out if she was trying to prank him, or if she was too drunk to realize the utter nonsense she was spouting, since by that point Karkat had managed to block out the sound of Captain English's voice.

 

“Of course, he _could_ be right,” Terezi mused.

 

“You believe that?”

 

“Oh, even if I did, I'd still have to take even the hint of a threat seriously. But no, this isn't bluster. I can smell her smugness.” She slid the sword back in its sheath and placed it on the table, then got up and stretched until all the cartilages in her body popped.

 

“Smugness doesn't have a smell,” Karkat said. Terezi turned to him and grinned from ear to ear, displaying the set of razor sharp fangs that had earned her the title of Neophyte Dragonmaw.

 

“Such cynicism!” she declared in mock-outrage. “Of course it does. It smells like lemons and paint solvent.”

 

Karkat grunted, but didn't argue. Terezi's lusus had taught her a few tricks in the short period between being hatched and dying in a freak accident, and he couldn't reliably prove her claims false. Terezi had a sharp nose and an awareness of her surroundings that he couldn't put down to her other senses, and he was perfectly fine with it, considering how many times it saved both their lives.

 

“So she's up to something. What?” he asked.

 

Terezi frowned, then shrugged.

 

“It could be anything! She's a wily one, or she wouldn't have evaded justice for so long.”

 

“Maybe her crew is coming to save her?” Karkat suggested.

 

“Not unless they've sprouted wings since being sent to human prison!” Terezi shook her head. “The Cetus was taken apart after they were apprehended. They could conceivably commandeer another ship, but Hemera has too much of a head start. No, whatever escape she has planned, she'll have to set it in motion herself.”

 

Karkat nodded and agreed, because Terezi was usually right about these kind of things.

 

But just this time, Terezi was wrong.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks to Ryo Hoshi for beta reading this chapter!

The first to notice something amiss was Hemera's navigator. He was bent over his workstation, squinting at his instruments through his thick glasses.  
  
“Something wrong, Mr. Vimms?” Roxy Lalonde asked him.  
  
“Well... eh...” The navigator shifted awkwardly as he looked at his gauges and back at Roxy. “Not quite sure what, Miss Lalonde.”  
  
Curious, Roxy leaned over his shoulder to have a look as well. What she saw were all the indicator needles swinging around wildly. While Roxy's circuitous career path had taken her through the navigator's seat as well, she had never seen anything like this before.  
  
“Deploy the viewports,” she ordered.  
  
“Ma'am? Which ones?” the startled yeoman asked.  
  
“All of them. Something's wrong, and we need to figure out what real quick,” she replied.  
  
The yeoman twisted all the knobs on her console and pulled a lever. A row of six screens in front of her console turned from completely black to white and gray as a complicated series of mirrored tubes emerged from Hemera's hull. Two of the screens showed the dark ground below, and the other four were pointed each in a different direction.  
  
“What could possibly cause this?” she asked the navigator, tapping one of the gauges.  
  
“Sometimes an incoming storm will make the needles skip a little, but nothing like this,” the navigator answer. “Or magnetite, but I don't think we're anywhere near a deposit of the stuff.”  
  
It was exactly what Roxy thought as well, but she'd hoped the navigator would have additional insight.  
  
“Yeoman, keep watching the screens,” she said. “I'll go find the captain. Something's not right here.”  
  
Knowing the captain, he'd just be delighted at the prospect of something new and exciting happening. Roxy stopped by the armory to get her rifle. These adventures tended to always end with someone shooting at her.  
  
*  
  
Terezi leaned over the rail, nostrils flaring as she peered down. Karkat, who had joined her on deck for a few minutes so he could bitch about the weather some more, followed her gaze.  
  
A curious instrument had emerged from a hatch on the side of Hemera's hull, a long black metallic tube looking like an unholy cross between a spyglass and a horroterror's frond. It twisted in the air, up and down, left and right, with a whirring sound.  
  
“I think this is the perfect time to check up on the prisoner,” Terezi suggested. “I'll go talk to the captain.”  
  
Karkat nodded and turned on his heel. He made a detour to the cabin to pick up his sickle. The airmen he passed on the corridors gave him strange looks, but he was beyond giving a damn.  
  
When he reached the brig, everything seemed normal. The two lumbering airmen from the other day had been exchanged for a different pair, though just as large as the first, and the Marquise was in her cell.  
  
The airmen both gave his sickle a long ponderous look before their hands inched towards the sabers on their hips. Whether they were going to physically object to Karkat bearing arms or if they would have merely puffed up and tried to intimidate him was to remain a mystery. At that moment, the whole dirigible shook hard enough to throw Karkat against a wall, and even knock the two airmen off their feet.  
  
*  
  
“What was that?” Terezi asked, hand clutching the hilt of her cane.  
  
Captain English and First Mate Lalonde exchanged a look, both brandishing their weapons.  
  
“Yeoman, anything on the viewscreens?” First Mate Lalonde barked.  
  
“Nothing, ma'am! Nothing around us for miles! Nothing below, either!”  
  
“What about above?”  
  
“Nothing there, unless we can't see it for the clouds. Wait, no—there's something. It's a... rope?”  
  
The first mate looked at the viewscreen, taking in the inexplicable sight of a length of rope appearing from mid-air and unfurling downwards, as if tied to something unseen. And then another, and another.  
  
“Are they invisible?” Captain English asked. It was a valid question, and a more careful observation of the screen would have revealed small inconsistencies in the image, a slight distortion to the air, strange shadows and reflections. There was, however, no time for such intensive study.  
  
“Those fellows aren't,” Miss Lalonde pointed to the figures sliding down ropes. They had curious canisters on their backs, and gas masks. “Ship-wide announcement, yeoman. We're being boarded. No guns, those canisters might hold something combustible.”  
  
*  
  
The tinny radio boxes spread across the ship blared with dire warnings, but that sound was drowned by the blood pounding in Karkat's head as the troll equivalent of adrenaline surged through his system. An eerie quiet descended on the ship, except for the occasional thud or the sound of heavy footfalls. Even the radios cut off suddenly, emitting a screech before turning off.  
  
Karkat closed the hallway door and retreated several steps, settling into a defensive stance as he waited to see what happened. The airmen behind him were whispering sharply to each other, but hopefully they wouldn't be twitchy enough to cut Karkat down in a panic.  
  
And the Marquise just wouldn't shut the fuck up.  
  
“Ugh, finally, I thought I'd be stuck foreeeeeeeever with you losers,” she said, and the rattle of shackles wasn't at all reassuring. “I told you your luck would run out! I have all the luck, it's mine!”  
  
“Serket, shut your fucking facegash before I come over there and slap it so hard that all the talk flies out your auricular clots,” Karkat growled.  
  
“That's Marquise to you, mutant,” she hissed back.  
  
Karkat didn't get to respond. The door was flung open, crashing against the wall, as a bluish cloud of mist rolled into the hallway of the brig. A figure appeared in the hallway, not much taller than Karkat. Human, yellow hair and a gas mask. He was dressed in a heavy leather outfit and had a belt full of strange contraptions.  
  
Karkat held his breath. The gas smelled sweet and clung to the roof of his mouth, but he didn't feel any different. But there were two resounding thuds behind him.  
  
“Two down, one to go,” the Marquise cackled.  
  
Poison, or sedative? Whatever it was, it only seemed to affect humans. Or maybe just affected humans first. Karkat didn't wait to see which one it was. He slashed at the human interloper with his sickle. He was defenseless, and human; one firm cut would be all that was needed to take him down.  
  
The invader produced a sword so fast that Karkat didn't even see where it came from, and blocked the attack. He had more reach than Karkat, but the troll wasn't worried yet. The sword looked unbelievably shitty, and he knew he could shatter it with his sickle if he got in the right position. The hallway was narrow, though, and the rattling of the Marquise's chains was distracting.  
  
“Come on, pasty, speed things up. I have irons in the fire and I want to check up on them sometime this sweep,” the Marquise yelled.  
  
Karkat could see the exasperation in the human's body language. It figured that not even the people come to save her liked the Marquise.  
  
“Sorry, princess, but queen bitch is getting impatient,” the human said, his voice muffled by the mask. It took Karkat a split second to realize what was happening.  
  
The human whipped a small cylinder off his belt and sprayed a green colored substance at Karkat. The distinctive astringent smell told Karkat what it was just moments before he fell to his knees.  
  
Sopor gas. The human had sopor gas.  
  
Karkat wanted to scream, but the world around him was rapidly losing focus. He felt tired, bone-tired, like he could sleep for an eon, and the last thing he heard before passing out was the Marquise's mocking voice.  
  
“You know, I've always wanted a pet--”  
  
And then nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

Terezi could not take on a dozen pirates without back-up. That didn't mean she didn't want to, but with all of Hemera's airmen passed out and Karkat down in the brig, she couldn't exactly jump into the fray.  
  
Sneaking seemed like the better option. Not really her style, but she preferred to see this as an investigation. She had no idea if she could stop them from taking the Marquise, so it was better to find out who these people were and where they were headed so she could recover the prisoner later.  
  
She moved as quietly as possibly to reach the deck. Luckily, there were stacks of barrels and crates on deck, supplies that wouldn't have fit in the hold, as well as the framework that connected the ship part of Hemera with the balloon part. A small crane and an array of pipes provided additional cover.  
  
The invaders were gathered near the nose of the ship, holding a hushed conversation. They all had canisters on their back, which were connected through rubbery tubes to the guns in their hands. This was the method they likely used to distribute the knock-out gas. They all had masks, ugly patched-up things of uneven sizes that covered their faces completely, and goggles with blacked-out lenses.  
  
She was considering her options when she saw something that made her nutrition sack lurch. One of the invaders emerged from below decks carrying a familiar figure on his back. He was accompanied by the Marquise.  
  
“She wants to take this one along,” the one carrying Karkat explained, as he heaved Karkat onto the deck.  
  
“What, she's in love now?” the female human remarked in an irritated tone.  
  
“Ours is not to ask why, ours is to get her skinny ass to the captain,” the yellow-haired human groused. “If you're hankering for a migraine, you try talkin' her out of it.”  
  
The female human made a dismissive gesture. “Let's get out of here,” she said.  
  
One by one, they grabbed the dangling ropes. They were wearing full-body harnesses, each with their own reel, and they attached their reels to the ropes. Someone handed one of the harnesses to the Marquise and showed her how to use it, while the human who’d been carrying Karkat stuck the insensate troll into one.  
  
Terezi could at least comfort herself with the thought that Karkat wasn't dead yet, but she still had no idea who these people were. She could already tell extreme measures would have to be taken.  
  
She moved along the side of a stack of crates, closer to the small group. They didn't all depart at once, though they sent Karkat and the Marquise ahead. Two or three at a time went up while the rest remained posted, prepared to spray more of their gas.  
  
Finally there was only one left, lingering behind in order to rifle through an unconscious airman's pocket. He removed a watch and squirreled it away in a pouch on his belt. As he was distracted by this unlawful activity, Terezi struck.  
  
Struck him over the head with her cane, that is.  
  
Quickly, she removed his harness, putting it on and attaching herself to the rope.  
  
The dutiful legislacerator follows her prey wherever the hunt might lead, even if this particular hunt was going to end with her in chains. There was just no helping it at this point.  
  
*  
  
High above the Hemera, hidden by little more than mirrors and light, another ship waited for her crew to return.  
  
“Let's goooooooo already, what are we sticking around for?” the Marquise asked, rubbing her sore wrists.  
  
The captain of the Typheus looked over his glasses at her and leveled the most deadpan stare he possibly could.  
  
“'Nice to see you again, John'” he said in a squeaky voice. “'You too!' 'Thanks for the rescue.' 'No problem, what are friends for?' 'Obviously not for social niceties! Bluh bluh, let's move, losers!'”  
  
The Marquise sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes.  
  
“Alright, alright, thanks, John,” she said. “I knew you'd save my butt. There, happy? Can we go now?”  
  
“Just about,” he replied, smiling at her. “Who's missing?” he yelled at the group of crewmen milling on the deck.  
  
“Magpie,” one of the crewman replied as he tugged off his canister and knuckled his back.  
  
“Of course,” John sighed.  
  
“He's coming up now,” the same crewman said, pointing to the taut rope.  
  
“Haul his ass on board and let's get some altitude,” John said. “The gas should be wearing off just about now, and we don't want to put more strain than necessary on our... friend.”  
  
There was a grunt of acknowledgment.  
  
“And Vriska,” he added quietly, “we'll need to talk about your guest.”  
  
He indicated the prone form of a nubby-horned troll, propped against a container. He had the sleek uniform of a threshecutioner, though his bloodsign was inexplicably gray in color. John didn't think that was his actual blood color, but he was intrigued, nonetheless.  
  
“Oh, he's not a guest,” the Marquise grinned. “He's my new pet.”  
  
“Vriska--”  
  
He was cut off by incredulous shouts. He turned around just in time to see a red and teal blur bludgeon two of his crew with a cane as she jumped down on the deck. Then at least two dozen weapons were drawn, even though only about a dozen men were present. Pirates were often prone to these kinds of overreactions.  
  
“Stop!” John shouted, and everyone froze. His crewmen had circled the troll already, but she seemed unconcerned. She casually threw her cane to the side.  
  
“Oh, no,” she said flatly. “You caught me. Woe is me.”  
  
Everybody stared at her, perplexed.  
  
“Aren't you going to clap me in irons?” she asked, presenting her wrists.  
  
“That's a legislacerator,” Vriska hissed at John. “She was taking me to be executed! You can't let her live, she's relentless. She probably followed me here to take me back!”  
  
“Vriska, she's not even putting up a fight,” John pointed out. “And didn't you just kidnap her friend?”  
  
“That's not the point,” Vriska huffed.  
  
“She seems peaceable enough,” John shrugged. “Quinn, lock her up down below,” he added, addressing a dark, short-haired woman.  
  
“And the other?” she asked, pointing to the unconscious troll.  
  
“Him too,” John confirmed. “Where's Magpie?”  
  
There was a lull in activity, as all eyes turned to the legislacerator.  
  
“She's wearing his harness,” someone pointed out.  
  
John's face hardened. “That's nice, but I asked about Magpie, not his harness.”  
  
The legislacerator grinned.  
  
“I guess you could say the little Magpie took flight,” she replied. Then she brought her fist down on her open palm and made a disturbingly graphic 'splat' sound.  
  
John's face twitched.  
  
“Lock them up,” he said. Then he left, and Vriska followed him.  
  
*  
  
One of the more grueling aspects of threshecutioner training was sopor deprivation.  
  
An army on the march often didn't have enough sopor for anyone other than the highblooded officers, so the training took this into account by depriving recruits completely early in their training. Karkat had had a distinct advantage in this respect. Upon conscription, he'd been sentenced to the culling pits for being a mutant. After surviving the requisite time and proving his worth in the Empire's eyes, he'd been grudgingly sent to the threshecutioner corps. But by that point, he hadn't seen a drop of sopor in nearly a perigee.  
  
Sopor withdrawal could do terrible things to trolls, and Karkat had been sober and lucid enough to witness and remember all of them. He'd seen the psychotic rages, the mood swings, the paranoia, the increased aggression, the depression and the anxiety first hand. He realized that the sleepless days of pain and uncertainty he underwent after being cut off were mild compared to what others experienced. He realized that not being able to sleep more than an hour or two at a time was a small price to pay in exchange for relative sanity. A small percentage of trolls never recovered from sopor withdrawal, or developed other, more insidious addictions to compensate.  
  
Therefore, Karkat no longer slept in sopor. He saw the danger in addiction. But he still craved it, and when his bouts of insomnia dragged out for nights and days at a time, he was sorely tempted to seek it out.  
  
So it was with no small degree of panic and confusion that he woke up with the familiar feel of sopor dulling his mind. Momentarily, he thought he was back in boot camp, and that some blueblood instructor was going to scream at him for being weak and shaming the Empire.  
  
He sprung forward only to fall backwards again and hit the back of his head against a wall. In a few seconds, an unexpected pain around his throat caught up with him. Lifting his hands produced more strange sensations, as well as the sound of rattling chains.  
  
Karkat stilled for a moment, calming himself down and taking stock of his surroundings.  
  
A narrow cell. Chamber pot in the corner, chains around his wrists and throat. Someone else next to him.  
  
“Terezi?” he croaked.  
  
“Nice of you to join us, Karkat,” she said cheerfully, rattling her own chains.  
  
He was confused until he turned his head and saw that someone was sitting on a stool just outside the cell bars.  
  
“Mornin', princess.”  
  
Karkat recognized the voice and the bright hair. His hand twitched, reaching for a sickle before remembering he wouldn't have one.  
  
“Dave and I were just having a lovely conversation,” Terezi said. She used that phrase for a large variety of situations ranging from ‘we were discussing tea blends’ to ‘he was just telling me all about the confession he's going to write once I finish showing him how his elbow can bend in the opposite direction,’ so Karkat kept quiet for now.  
  
Dave was no longer wearing the gas mask, but he still had a pair of goggles with blacked-out lenses on. He was also wearing an eye-searingly red pair of billowy pants paired with a purple vest, and these two facts alone convinced Karkat that the human must suffer from a seriously debilitating spongecase injury.  
  
“Yeah, so I was saying,” Dave continued, as he peeled an apple with a switchblade, “everybody was a lot more upset about Magpie before they found his stash.”  
  
“And this stash was filled with his ill-gotten gains, was it?” Terezi asked.  
  
“Oh, yeah. Not that we object to that,” Dave shrugged. “We're all about the ill-gotten gains around here. Nobody's kicking the gains, no matter how lacking in health their getting is.”  
  
“But he was stealing from the rest of you,” Terezi continued.  
  
“Got it right in one. How about that.”  
  
“I can recognize the type.”  
  
“Right, right. Scary law student, I keep forgetting.”  
  
“Legislacerator,” Karkat growled.  
  
“Leg-is-laced-alrighter, whatever,” he shrugged. “Found my second-best switchblade in the magpie nest.” He brandished the switchblade, flipped it around his fingers in a showy maneuver and closed it. “Very important, having a second-best switchblade. Can't use the best one for things like this.”  
  
He showed them the apple peel; it was one long, continuous spiral.  
  
“Not hygienic, you know. I use that one to stab people.”  
  
He threw the apple through the bars and it landed in Terezi's lap. She grabbed it and sank her teeth in it greedily.  
  
“I don't know, Dave,” she said after swallowing, “I find that the blood of my enemies makes a fantastic condiment.”  
  
The corner of Dave's mouth twisted a bit in disgust, and even Karkat felt a bit put off by the notion, even though he knew for a fact Terezi didn't approve of anyone's bodily fluids in her food.  
  
“You two have fun, now,” Dave said, moving down the corridor and out of sight. “Some of us have to pull our goddamn weight around here.”  
  
There was the sound of a door closing, followed by silence. Terezi ate half the apple and gave Karkat the rest. Neither talked until Karkat finally turned to Terezi and asked, “What the fuck was all that about a magpie?”


End file.
